


connecting

by followsrabbit



Category: The Bold Type
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-16 21:13:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13062267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/followsrabbit/pseuds/followsrabbit
Summary: The airport was a spectacle. Christmas decorations hung from the high ceilings and shop-fronts, all green and red and loud with leftover holiday cheer.None of this stopped Jane from noticing Ryan as soon as he strode over to her gate.





	connecting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alessandralee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alessandralee/gifts).



(5:23pm):  _So_

(5:23pm):  _Pinstripe Guy (formerly Pinstripe Guy?) is here_

(5:24pm):  **??????????**

(5:24pm):  **Where is here?**

(5:24pm):  _The airport. In Colorado. At my gate._

(5:25pm): Pinstripe wow

(5:25pm): Major flashback

(5:25pm):  _Except not a flashback, because he’s currently standing like six feet away from me_

(5:25pm): Is he still hot?

(5:26pm): Nvm of course he’s still hot

(5:26pm):  **Has he seen you???**

(5:26pm):  _I don’t think so_

(5:26pm):  _Unless he’s pretending not to have seen me?_

(5:27pm): Like you are, you mean

(5:27pm):  **Wow**

(5:27pm):  **Months in New York**

(5:27pm):  **No sightings**

(5:28pm):  **And you see him in Colorado**

(5:28pm): How weird is that

(5:29pm):  _Trust me, I’m aware_

(5:29pm):  _Okay he’s definitely looking at me_

(5:29pm):  **Details!!!!**

(5:29pm):  **As soon as you’re home**

(5:30pm): Survive the snow, Tiny Jane, we want gossip

* * *

The airport was a spectacle. Christmas decorations hung from the high ceilings and shop-fronts, all green and red and loud with leftover holiday cheer. Parka-laden travelers rushed from gate to coffee shop to gate.

None of this stopped Jane from noticing Ryan as soon as he strode over to her gate. Bizarre circumstances aside, Jane recognized him immediately. She hadn’t slept with  _that_ many people, and she was pretty sure every guy she’d seen naked was basically imprinted onto her brain for better or worse.

(Aesthetically speaking, Ryan Decker definitely fell into the  _better_  category.) (A lot better.) She shook her head. (Really not the time.)

It was just—how was it possible that they were at the very same gate, in the very same airport, in  _Colorado_ , at the very same time? She’d gone actual months without seeing him in New York, where they’d had every chance of crossing paths at a networking event or a movie or a deli. But no. She had to run into him here, while clad in a baggy sweatshirt and yoga pants.

She always wore yoga pants on flights back from Denver; four and a half hours of fidgeting in a window seat didn't exactly warrant her favorite pair of designer jeans. But she wasn’t supposed to see anyone she knew from New York in Denver. She definitely wasn’t supposed to run into her ex—

_Fling? Lover? Friend with (amazingly good) benefits?_

Biting down hard on her tongue, she reaffirmed:  _not the time._

“Jane?”

She still had her fingers curled around her phone when Ryan's voice reached her ears through the airport chatter. It almost slipped as she stumbled back, her eyes widening, even though she shouldn’t be surprised by the sight of him. The sound of him. “Ryan.”

He looked perfect, of course.  _So_  New York, with the black jacket and the couldn’t-fit-better jeans and the general air of amused composure—except, he didn’t look that amused right now. He was blinking too much. There was a slight gap or gape separating his upper and lower lips.

Jane tried not to stare at the dart of his tongue across that lower lip. Tried not to remember how his lips felt. Tried not to consider—

“Wow,” he said. “Jane Sloan. Long time.”

She tried to resist the urge to shake her head at herself. “You’re in Colorado.” Her ponytail danced. She didn’t succeed.

A slow nod, a low laugh. If she hadn’t heard his laugh before, she might not have caught the awkwardness touching it now. “That would explain all the mountains.”

“And the snow.” Clutching her tote bag against her side, Jane wondered what her smile looked like. It felt very, obviously, notably strained.

There was, indeed, a lot of snow falling just beyond the full, far window.

 _Of course_  it ended up delaying their flight.

*

Delayed flights sucked. The airport bar located just by their gate sucked slightly less. The vodka soda currently chilling Jane's palm didn’t suck at all.

“So,” she said, as they grabbed a high-top table. “Colorado?”

“Layover,” Ryan said, claiming the seat beside hers, his feet coming down so much closer to the ground than her own could manage. “Good old California Christmas.”

Jane blinked a sip from her (double; deservedly so) drink. “You’re from California?”

He grinned at her. “We never talked about that?”

"You told me that your dad likes Tequila Sunrises. This is all I know.”

He was still grinning, his perfect teeth were still showing, but his gaze suddenly felt heavier than it just had. “Guess we never got the chance for the deep childhood discussions.”

Jane wondered if she was supposed to read  _because you broke it off_ between the lines. Probably not. That was probably just in her head—

Ryan shook his head. “You know, I’ve thought about running into you plenty of times, but I always assumed it would happen in New York.”

 _Plenty of times_. Jane swallowed, smiled, and then went with the tried and true method of diverting the subject. “Hey, I’m from Colorado,” she said. “This is my airport.” She was _such_ a coward.

“Well, I thank you for the hospitality then, Jane Sloan of Colorado.”

She raised her glass in mock acknowledgement.

“Or should I say Jane Sloan of Incite?”

She kept her glass slightly raised. “You could also say that.” Then she tilted its rim past her lips again. The ice knocked against her teeth, the tint of lime across her tongue.

“I never asked,” he said, “what ended up deciding it for you. The universe?”

She breathed. “Me, actually. I figured it was time to take a chance. Do the brave thing.” Him too, partly. That could go unsaid.

And his eyes were on hers again, that same weight to them. He definitely heard what she wasn’t saying. “Shame I don’t have a unicorn dreamtini to toast you with.”

Her smile lightened along with his gaze. “So out of season now," Jane said. "A summer cocktail in December?”

“What was I thinking?” he replied. Laughter lurked between the letters.

“You should probably drink for that.”

He grinned. He drank. They both did.

*

It took another flight delay and two more drinks for the conversation to circle back to the universe.

“So,” Ryan said, “what do you think it means that the universe put us on this flight together?”

“And then repeatedly delayed it?”

“Thus giving us the chance to have this drink.”

She’d been trying very, very hard not to ask herself that very question. Jane didn’t want to rely on the universe for signs, didn’t want to read fate into every which happenstance. That was too easy. Harder to choose control, agency, over her own life. “I think it means,” she said slowly, “that old friends are bound to catch up eventually.”

The skepticism on his face could pen its own satire. “Were we ever just friends, Sloan?”

She raised both eyebrows. “Were we ever anything else?”

“You tell me. You’re the one who decided that I wasn’t looking for anything serious,” he said. It should have felt like an accusation, but Jane couldn’t bring herself to read it as one. To think that he’d intend it as one. What they’d had—it had never pretended to have strings. There hadn’t been anything for to cut, really, when she’d ended things.

“Right,” she said. “And you didn’t disagree.”

He ran a hand through his dark hair. “I didn’t.”

 _Be brave, be brave, be brave_ —“Are you saying that you disagree now?”

His arm, bared of his jacket, was on the table, tangibly close to her own. She could _feel_ the meager space between them. “I’m saying that I’m really, really glad I bumped into you,” he said.

Jane opened her mouth.

Of course, the airport speakers chose that moment to crackle to life. Of course, they didn’t announce anything relevant to their flight, for as carefully as Jane and Ryan listened for an update.

Once the speakers had quieted, Jane considered using the out, changing the subject. Pretending that she’d lost the thread of the conversation. Cutting it.

“I’m glad too,” she said instead, finally, fingers curled tight around her dwindling drink. “It’s weird though, isn’t it? That it would happen here?”

Ryan's phone buzzed on the table, vibrating across its muted stains, but he didn’t even seem to hear it. “I seem to remember you once crediting the universe for coincidences like this one.”

Yes. Maybe. Sometimes.  _If your taxi turns right, take this job. If the president’s dinner plans trap you at work, take this one. If you run into your ex at the airport—_ Jane shook her head. “You believe in fate now?” she asked.

“Maybe.” Ryan left his half-full glass on the table when he shrugged. “I believe in not ruling anything out.” He felt closer to her than he had a moment before. Much closer to her than he had when they’d sat down.

Jane sipped at her vodka soda. “Especially anything that might benefit you?” She meant the words as a joke, but somehow they did nothing to dissolve the new tension stretching, almost physical, between them. Only hummed through it, highlighting its edges.

 _Of course,_ he could arch just the one eyebrow.

“Okay,” she yielded. “That was harsh.”

“Maybe. But I still like it when a woman speaks her mind.”

“I think your exact wording was that there's nothing sexier than a woman speaking her mind.” She was closer now too. Leaning. Remembering. Wanting.

“And that’s still true,” Ryan said. “With a slight modification.”

Jane swallowed. “Oh?”

“There’s nothing sexier than you speaking your mind.”

“That’s—definitely a line.”

Her breath caught as his fingers combed their way through the ends of her hair. “I guess I’m just going to have to prove you wrong.”

As his mouth came just that much closer to hers. “It might take a while,” she said or breathed or dared.

“I’m going to hold you to that.”

* * *

(09:37pm):  _So_

(09:37pm):  _My flight was cancelled, definitely don’t wait up_

(09:40pm):  **:(**

(09:40pm):  **I hate that, I’m sorry munchkin**

(09:40pm): And formerly Pinstripe guy?

(09:41pm): Less cancelled

 

 

 

 


End file.
